Raven s Strike

by Patricia Briggs

  Though her glow hadn’t dimmed, Rinnie must have heard what Seraph had said: the rain and wind died, leaving an uncanny silence in its wake, but the storm and all its potential violence still hung overhead malevolently.

  “There are a few spells that can hurt it,” said Hennea.

  In her anxiety for her family, Seraph had almost forgotten the other Raven.

  She turned to see Hennea circle her hands as if she held a large globe, then make a tossing motion. As soon as it crossed the wards, her spell turned into a ball of fire so hot it burned blue. It hit the troll in the middle of its forehead with an impact Seraph could hear from where she stood.

  Blinded by the light of the fire, the troll pulled the molten ball from its forehead, and at its touch the magic fell into nothing, leaving only a great blackened area in the troll’s face. The troll howled its rage.

  “You have to teach me that one,” said Seraph. “But it’s not going to help us much. They hunt by scent and hearing. Blinding’s only going to make it angry.”

  Someone had heard her tell Lehr to use fire; she heard a voice cry, “We need flaming arrows!” Someone else yelled, “Eyes, mouth, and private parts, boys.”

  The troll charged the warding again. Seraph dodged past Skew to give the ward more power, ignoring Tier’s shout of consternation. The troll saw her, too, and began wading through the barrier of magic to get to her.

  Trolls were smarter than they looked.

  A great mountain cat leapt onto the troll from the top of a tree, landing on the top of its head and sending it staggering back away from Seraph and the warding.

  Jes, thought Seraph. A black mountain cat was one of the forms that Jes favored—and a normal great mountain cat would never have attacked a troll.

  The enraged cry of the cat joined the howl of the troll. Before the troll could regain its balance, Gura joined in the attack, going for the tendon on the back of the troll’s ankle.

  The troll kicked out wildly and caught Gura with the edge of its foot. The dog yipped once and rolled a dozen feet to stop against a tree. He lay still.

  Jes braced his hind legs on the back of the troll’s neck and sank his front claws deep into the top of its forehead, then pulled back—forcing the troll’s mouth open.

  A troll’s joints worked differently than most animals. It had no neck, and its lower jaw was fixed in relation to its body—so it chewed by moving the upper portion of its head rather than the lower. By taking control of the head, Jes’s hold gave him effective control of the whole troll.

  It was clever, Seraph acknowledged, but how did Jes know enough of trolls to use its weaknesses against it?

  Someone had listened to her because a flaming arrow sank into the troll’s open mouth. Once she turned her attention to it, Seraph realized she’d been smelling burning oil for a few minutes. She turned to see the double handful of archers, including Lehr, were all shooting flaming arrows, which, inexpertly wrapped in oiled rags were awkward to shoot.

  A number of the arrows smoldered in the damp ground in front of the troll, but the arrow she watched Lehr loose flew to lodge in between the troll’s gaping jaws, just beside the first one that had hit it. He sent two more to follow the first in quick succession. Each hit was followed by a round of cheers from the rest of the villagers, who were beginning to find the target with their own arrows.

  Maddened, the troll fought to close its mouth. Jes’s claws slid through the tough skin, opening huge gashes, but also allowing the troll to close its mouth. It dropped to the ground and rolled, forcing Jes to leap clear. The smell of scorched flesh rose from the troll as it rolled again, trying to put out the fire of a dozen arrows.

  The panther grunted and backed away until it stood near Gura, who was rising unsteadily to his feet. As soon as it was obvious that the troll was distracted by the fire that was eating it, the big cat disappeared into the woods, driving the dog before it.

  Seraph heard Hennea murmur, “That’s it, Jes. Away from us for the moment. The last thing we need is for anyone to be more panicked than they already are.”

  The wind began slowly, then gusted suddenly, fanning the small flames caused by stray arrows that had been slowly dying in the storm-dampened grass. Someone, it must have been Hennea, used magic to snuff out the fires.

  “Rinnie,” Seraph said in a biting voice. “That’s enough.”

  But the sharp tones that sometimes worked did nothing as power shook Rinnie’s small body.

  “Is something wrong?” said Tier.

  “Call her, Tier,” she said. “Quickly.”

  “Rinnie?” he said.

  “Not like that,” Seraph said. “Like you called Skew the night the bear got into the barn. She’s riding the storm, and it’ll kill her unless you can summon her back.”

  He didn’t make her explain further.

  “Rinnie,” he said, his voice somehow carrying the reverberating power of the thunder.

  The children were not the only ones who had learned something about their Orders this past spring. Tier’s voice sounded louder than it actually was—Seraph could feel it settle deeply into her bones, though it was not she whom he called. Even the troll stopped its flailing for an instant.

  Seraph could sense the change in the weather even before rain began falling again, this time in a gentle drizzle that would eventually drain the power from the storm. She took a relieved breath. “Hennea, keep that troll dry so it burns to ash.”

  “Done.”

  “Papa,” said Rinnie, dazedly staring at Tier. “Is it dead?”

  Tier sheathed his sword and swung down from Skew’s back, grunting as he hit the ground. But his knees didn’t stop him from picking Rinnie up and pulling her tight.

  “Shh,” he said. “You’re safe now.”

  But he spoke too soon.

  The troll rolled across the wards and kept coming.

  Tier, with his back to the burning troll, his eyes on Rinnie, had no warning. The dying monster struck him a glancing blow that knocked him off his feet. Tier rolled over until Rinnie was below him, protecting her with his body.

  But the troll knew where they were now and brought forward a three-fingered hand and wrapped it around Tier’s legs.

  The troll still lay across Seraph’s wards, and she spoke, using for the first time in her life one of the Words that had been passed down from the Colossae wizards to their Traveler children.

  “Sila-evra-kilin-faurath!”

  The wards shifted and became something else, called into being by her will and the ancient syllables.

  For two decades Seraph had gone out each season to walk a path around the farm while her family slept. She’d set her blood and hair into the soil and called a spell to protect her family from harm. With the Word she called that power into a single act that was the culmination of the purpose of all those nights, all that magic.

  Lehr’s fire died completely, leaving the troll burnt and blackened, but alive. It roared triumphantly and tightened its grip on Tier.

  Someone made a dismayed sound.

  “Die,” said Seraph, in a voice so hoarse and deep it sounded unfamiliar, as if something else used her throat. There was no room left in her for anger or fear, no room for anything except power as she touched the troll.

  Blackened flesh turned grey and cracked around grass-green bones. Grey turned to white ash that slid to the ground under the gentle hand of the rain and the iron-shod hooves of Skew as the battle-trained horse protected his rider as he had been trained.

  Seraph took in deep breaths and tried to contain herself, but there was too much power.

  “Don’t touch her, Lehr,” Hennea said. “Look to Tier and the child. Seraph. Seraph.”

  Slowly, Seraph turned her head to look at the other Raven, who averted her gaze under Seraph’s hot attention.

  “What are you going to do with the magic, Seraph?” Despite dropping her gaze, Hennea sounded serene.

  Seraph found herself clinging to that serenity for a
moment. “Too much,” she said. “Unwise to kill something that old with a Word.”

  “What are you going to do with it?”

  The force of the power the Words had siphoned into her burned and felt wondrous at the same time. The troll had been old, too old. The power of his death rippled through her along with the magic she herself had drained from her wards. Too much power to be safe.

  “The wardings,” she said, her voice thick and still oddly deep. “I need to protect . . .”

  “Papa?”

  Lehr’s voice broke Hennea’s hold on her, reminding her why she’d killed the troll in the first place. She might have been too late. “Tier? Rinnie?”

  Seraph turned to look at Tier, where Lehr and a couple of the bolder villagers were pulling the remains—bones—of the troll off them.

  “They are alive.” Hennea’s voice was calm. “And they’ll remain so if you can contain the magic you hold. Control yourself, Raven.”

  “Take care of them,” Seraph said harshly, resenting the part of her that understood that Hennea was correct. She had to rid herself of this magic. “I’ll walk the wards.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Not letting herself look back, Seraph walked briskly through the storm-tattered camp that covered their fields, ignoring the people who scuttled out of her way. She stared at the ground to spare them her gaze until she made it into the woods that bordered the farm.

  What had she been going to do?

  She stood where she was for a long moment.

  She had to protect . . . by Lark and Raven, she was power-sick. Couldn’t think clearly.

  The warding. She should reset the warding. Slowly she made her way to the place where the warding had been and knelt in the dirt.

  There are two ways to set wardings. The voice of her old teacher was as clear as if he’d been standing over her shoulder. For a night a warding can be a simple thing, a rope that surrounds the tents and wagons and keeps them safe. But for any longer, or where dangers are greater, a warding is best worked as a chain with interconnecting links, each subtly different from the one before so that if one link fell, the others will still be effective guards.

  She pressed her hands into the soil and began, ignoring the ugly whispering voice that tried to coax her to keep the power she held. If she could kill a troll with a whisper, how great was the good that she could accomplish with what she now held?

  Her hands tingled as she carefully drew a curved line. She’d never held such power.

  Only as the terrible rush of the troll’s death died away did she really understand how old it had been. She felt his age in the burn of magic that was not lessened even when she set wards that should keep out the shadowed for generations.

  She feared that just relaying the wards would not be enough to absorb so much so she began to feed it into the forest. Too much, and she’d harm as much as she helped, but a slow trickle of magic should not cause a problem.

  Gradually the discipline of redrawing the wards absorbed her. Mathematical and artistic at the same time, they required enough of her attention that the part of her that desired the rush of power was reduced to murmurs she could ignore.

  She became aware of him gradually, a pale form grazing quietly beside her. The pattering of the light rain was accompanied by the grinding of teeth and grass. The familiar, peaceful sound helped somehow, and she became aware of a deep inner contentment.

  She was home.

  She finished the link she was working and sat back, fisting her hands against her lower back as she stretched.

  “You don’t look well,” she said.

  “One of the tainted creatures attacked the priest,” replied the pale horse who was Jes’s forest king. His voice was velvety and very deep. “I saved him, but it was a near-run thing. Karadoc’s not young by Rederni standards, and he’s ill even yet. Without a priest, fighting the shadow-tainted has been draining, even with the help of your daughter.”

  She absorbed what he said and sorted through questions. The slowness of her thoughts told her that she was far from free of power-sickness yet.

  “The troll wasn’t the first of the shadow-tainted creatures to come here?” she asked. She didn’t need Lehr or Jes to tell her that the troll had been tainted. Unlike the mistwight, trolls were shadow-born, creatures whose only purpose was to destroy and kill.

  “No, there were other things, too, things I haven’t seen since the Fall, though none as dangerous as the troll. They come to destroy and feed the Shadowed.”

  Seraph stilled. “I had hoped that we were wrong. You are sure there is another Shadowed? That Volis couldn’t have set up a summoning spell?”

  The horse snorted. “Creatures like that troll would only come to the call of a Shadowed.” He rubbed his nose on his knee.

  “You mean the Shadowed is here?” asked Seraph, then shook with the rebellion of her magic as her control of her emotions wavered. She took in deep, even breaths until everything settled down.

  The forest king waited until she was through before he said, “Not now, I don’t think. But he has been here. He left behind a rune in the old temple that was triggered a few weeks ago.” He lifted his head to scent the air, then shook his mane and turned his attention back to her. “I don’t pay enough attention to the town. If Karadoc hadn’t called me when the first of the creatures appeared, it might have taken me too long to find the rune on my own. As it was, other than destroying the rune, I could do little for them in the stone of the town, so I called them here, where your wards could do some of the work while I took care of the tainted things. I wasn’t expecting the troll, so I used myself up healing the priest and driving away the little things. A troll . . .” He sighed. “A normal troll would not have been too difficult, but that one . . . Your wards kept him mostly away from the villagers until today.”

  “There was a rune in the temple,” Seraph said.

  “To awaken and draw those things that bear the collar of the Shadowed,” the forest king explained. “The priest took me to the temple, and we destroyed the rune. Not soon enough.”

  Runes were solsenti wizardry mostly. Seraph was only marginally familiar with the theory behind them—though there were a few useful ones that she used sometimes. She did know that they could be drawn and set to wait until something triggered them. The temple had only been built this past winter, though, so the Shadowed had been in Redern sometime since then.

  A number of the Path’s wizards had come with Volis, the wizard-priest she’d killed in the new temple in the village. The other wizards kidnaped Tier, then left for Taela. The Shadowed could have been among them.

  Perhaps the mistwight that killed the smith’s daughter had been drawn from whatever place it had been hidden and was traveling toward Redern. After the forest king stopped the call it settled in the smith’s well. Unhappily, she wondered how many other creatures were even now preying upon defenseless villages—maybe that was what Benroln had been called to fight.

  The burn of power slowed Seraph’s thoughts, and she returned to her wardings. The forest king followed her when she moved, grazing while she worked.

  Darkness fell under the trees, though she could see patches of light where the trees were thin. The birds quieted as they settled in for sleep, but there was music coming from the farm. She smiled; let more than two Rederni get together, and there would be music.

  She examined the progress of her magicweaving critically and was satisfied. Her thoughts were a little clearer than they’d been, and the wards were strong and tightly woven.

  “Tier told me once that he thought Jes’s forest king shared a number of traits with Ellevanal,” she told the horse casually.

  Ellevanal was the god worshiped by the mountain peoples, including the Rederni. Though today was only the second time Seraph had seen him, Jes had spent his summers exploring the woods with a creature he’d called the forest king since he was old enough to run.

  “Bards see things that others do not,” agreed the forest
king, taking another bite of grass.

  “What would the Rederni say if they saw their god of forests eating grass?” asked Seraph.

  “They are not Travelers,” replied the god after he’d finished chewing. “They would not see what you do.”

  She laughed despite herself. “Now that’s a properly mystical answer.”

  “I thought so,” he said. “But it is true for all of that.”

  “Gods do not look haggard and sick to their worshipers?”

  “You don’t believe in the gods,” Ellevanal said. “How would you know what they do or don’t do?” The teasing note fell from his voice. “They say that the Travelers don’t believe in the gods because they killed theirs and ate them.”

  “I’ve never heard that.”

  “Of course not,” said Ellevanal. “You are a Traveler who doesn’t believe in gods.”

  “How long have you been here, guarding the forest?”

  The horse raised its head and tested the wind, his rib cage rising and falling as if he’d been racing rather than quietly grazing at her side an hour or more. There was mud on his legs and belly.

  “A long time,” he said. “Before the Shadowed King came and laid waste to the world. Before the Remnants of the Glorious Army of Man arrived here after the Fall and found safe harbor here, naming me god in their gratitude.” Then he cast her a roguish glance. “Before the unthinkable happened, and Tieragan Baker was born Ordered and upset the Travelers’ world.”

  “He hasn’t upset the Travelers’ world,” she said.

  “Hasn’t he?” The horse snorted and tossed his head. “Wait and see what an Ordered Rederni may do. Already word of you is windborne, and some will come seeking you to destroy what you may become.”

  Seraph raised an eyebrow at him.

  He dropped his head slyly. “A god may speak in riddles if He will.”

  She shook her head at him and went back to work because the power had begun singing to her again. The forest king went back to eating.

  When she came to a place where she could see the farm she was reassured to note that the camp was orderly and relaxed.